


Shelved

by little_murmaider



Series: I Hope You Die. I Hope We Both Die. [3]
Category: Metalocalypse
Genre: Dolly Parton jams, Dysfunctional Relationships, Jealousy, M/M, Pre-Klok, Pre-Series, Sad boy angry yelling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-08
Updated: 2017-12-08
Packaged: 2019-02-12 01:37:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12948504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/little_murmaider/pseuds/little_murmaider
Summary: "I had to have this talk with you. My happiness depends on you and whatever you decide to do, Jolene."





	Shelved

**Author's Note:**

> Am I really in these streets writing Metalocalypse fanfiction based on [Dolly Parton songs?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IW25foOMkwI)And naming said fanfiction after [Mountain Goats songs?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imKtQCGUteo) Yes. Yes I am. An innovator. An icon.

Magnus stubbed out his cigarette on the grimy living room rug. The skin of his thumb was rubbed raw from the faulty spark wheel of his old, shitty lighter, but he kept flicking at it. Flame. No flame. Flame. No flame. They were late. Of course. Of course they were.  
  
“Scho uhhhhhhh,” Murderface drawled from opposite him, on the couch that doubled as his bed. “Nathan and Picklesch have been out a while, huh?”  
  
Magnus watched the door. Murderface glanced at his bare wrist.  
  
“They went to Riverschide, right? That’sch only a 15 minute walk, schouldn’t they be back by now?  
  
Skwisgaar, seated beside Murderface, shot him a look that clearly said _You won’t be able to see how this unfolds if you’re_ ** _fucking dead_**. Murderface did not notice.  
  
“Schure have been schpending a lot of time together. Scheem to be getting... _reeeeeeeally_ close...”

Right on cue, who should burst into the apartment but the gruesome twosome. Hanging off each other, open-mouth laughing, a torrent of cheap bourbon and conviviality. Magnus rose to his feet.  
  
“Welcome home, boys,” he said, his voice level, his skin stretching taut over his skull. “Have a good night? Have fun? Have a nice, fun time, out? That’s fun.”  
  
Nathan’s expression got stony. Pickles elbowed him in the ribs, muttering, “I toldja he’d be like this.”  
  
“What’d you do? Where’d you go? I wanna hear all about your great, _fun_ night.” Magnus could _hear_ how he sounded, like a simpering teenage girl, but could not bring himself to stop.  
  
“You know we were at Riverside,” Nathan intoned.    
  
“Is that so! Because last call at The Riverside is 1:30. And it iiiiiiiiis--” He turned back to look at the digital clock on the stove with great theatricality, “--lllllllllater than that!”  
  
“We went to a second bahr,” Pickles said with a sneer. Nathan’s mouth set in a firm line. He stared at the ground.  
  
“Pickles, don’t.”  
  
“Is theet sucha crime?”  
  
“A second bar!” He grinned like his jaw was about to come unhinged. “Where’d ya go? Leggett’s, which closes at midnight? The Crosby, which isn’t open on Mondays? Famished Frog, which is on the complete opposite end of town? Paint me a word picture.”  
  
“What are you doing, Magnus?” Nathan ask quietly.  
  
“Just trying to figure out how you spent all that time on your fun, _friendly_ , **fun** night on the town. As friends.”  
  
Pickles’s eyes narrowed as he squared up. “Am I bein’ accused of somethin’?”  
  
“I don’t know, _are_ you?”  
  
“I dunno, _am_ I?”  
  
“ _I_ don’t know, _are_ you?”  
  
“I _dunno_ , am I?”  
  
Skwisgaar leaned into Murderface and spoke out of the side of his mouth. “I t’inks dere ams a language barriers. I don’ts understand whats dey ams talking abouts.”  
  
“Naaah, it’sch not you,” Murderface stage-whispered. “I don’t know what the fuck they’re schaying either.”  
  
Pickles lifted both middle fingers and thrust them in Magnus’s direction.  
  
“Fuck off, fuck **you,** I don’t need to take this from some Glenn Close-looking motherfucker.” He whirled on Nathan, jabbing a finger into his chest. “ _Handle_ your shit.”  
  
With that he stomped off, slamming his bedroom door so hard the various empties scattered about the floor and countertops rattled from the impact. When the vibrations stopped, Skwisgaar slid off the couch like mercury and slinked out of sight. Magnus heard a light rapping on wood, a patronizing, “ _Heyyyyyyyyyyyy pals_ ,” a door creaking open, then clicking shut.  
  
The air simmered with tension. Head still bowed, Nathan’s fiery gaze flitted up to meet Magnus’s.  
  
“Murderface. Can we have the room, please.”  
  
Murderface reclined into his couch-bed, locking his fingers behind his neck.  
  
“Weeeellllllllll schee fellasch, the thing isch, thisch is _technically_ _my_ room. Scho it would scheme the more prudent scholution would be for you to find schomewhere elsche to hasch it out--”  
  
Magnus and Nathan snapped toward him, eyes bulging from their skulls.  
  
“--but I’m feeling graciousch, pleasche, by all meansch, take the time you need.”  
  
He skittered away like a cockroach seeking darkness, who knows where, who cares? Nathan rolled his shoulders. His features kept resetting, a meld of emotions scrambled into an unreadable omelette. Elsewhere in the building, someone took a shower, water sloshing through the pipes in the adjoining walls.  
  
Nathan broke first. “You’re--”  
  
“I’m what, Nate?” He cocked his head, squinted, bit his lower lip. “What’s it gonna be this time? I’m paranoid? I’m craaaaaaaa _AAAAAA_ aaazy? I’m seeing things that aren’t there? I’m ruining everything? I’m scaring you?”  
  
His brain was a broken record, spitting out the same hiccuping phrase.  
  
“I’m _scaring_ you? _I’m_ scaring _you_? I’m scaring _you_? I’m _scar_ ing you?”  
  
A half-empty bottle of beer launched through the air and exploded on the wall just beside Magnus’s head.Brown liquid cascaded down the white plaster, spidery and dark. If Nathan had wanted to hit him, he would have.  
  
“I _can’t_ keep having this fight,” Nathan said. His voice was a broken birdhouse. “ _You’re_ supposed to be the grown up.”  
  
Magnus felt the malice ooze out from his pores, a spike of coldness hit the base of his spine. He opened his mouth, closed it again. Glittering flecks of green glass glimmered in the carpet at his feet. Nathan squeezed the neck of another bottle. Picked it up. Cringed. Put it down. Dropped his shoulders. Trudged off to his room, closed the door behind him.  
  
For the next few hours Magnus was out of sorts. He paced the block once, twice, three times, four times. He sat in their apartment complex’s parking lot, smoked a cigarette; smoked a second. He tied his hair into a bun so it laid against his skin in a wiry puff. He tried to remember the last time he made Nathan laugh. Really, genuinely laugh. He couldn’t.  
  
Nathan’s door was unlocked, so Magnus tiptoed around the discarded jeans and torn apart Doritos bags. It was too hot for blankets. Nathan was on his side, away from the door, a sheet flung across his hips. Magnus crept beside him, basked in the heat rolling off Nathan’s bare skin. His back was smattered with moles, and Magnus walked his fingers between them, pressing his index finger to one just below his left shoulder blade. A lock of black hair tickled his knuckles.  
  
“Hey,” he breathed. “You awake?”  
  
Nathan grumbled, readjusting but not looking back. “Now I am.”  
  
“Listen,” he said, palm flat against him. “Whatever this fucked-up horrorshow we got going on, I’m all-in. Alright?”  
  
He paused. No answer.  
  
“And this...it makes me act a certain way, because I don’t know if you are. I feel like I’m alone in this.”  
  
He paused. No answer.  
  
“Am I alone in this?”  
  
He waited in the silence for a response that never came. Nathan had fallen back asleep.

 


End file.
